IL cuts textbook funds, increasing schoolbook price, which is already the highest in the nation

from the Chicago Tribune:




Illinois families already shell out more money for K-12 textbooks than parents anywhere else in the country, but now they face even steeper bills after the state wiped out funding for schoolbooks.

With the state in fiscal crisis, the Illinois State Board of Education for the second year has eliminated more than $40 million in funding used to defray textbook costs — or about $40 per student.

Now, districts are passing along that cost to families in a variety of ways: Some schools that rent books to students are hiking the fees. Those that require students to buy books will be passing out fewer free ones. And even private schools are taking a hit because the money also was available to them, prompting Illinois' Catholic bishops to write a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn calling the cuts "poorly reasoned and deeply flawed."

While books are free in the vast majority of public school districts across the country, bills of $300 or more per student are not uncommon in some Chicago-area schools. Instead of using tax dollars or general state aid money, districts have traditionally looked to parents to pay for books. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-textbook-cuts-20100808,0,133463.story

But most district do charge quite a bit in fees. Unfortunately, when you're well over 80% free/reduced lunch, we could charge whatever we want and we'd never get it. So we don't bother. Wealthier districts actually get MORE money because they CAN charge fees and collect them. Just another case of the rich getting richer.

I've been waiting for YEARS for a parent to file a lawsuit.

When my kids were in school, I just refused to pay the fees. And nothing happened. The district where I work doesn't charge them. I called my kids' schools every August and said I wouldn't pay and the principal was always very understanding. One said he wished more parents would refuse to pay. I told him it wasn't that we couldn't afford it, but I felt they were a violation of my child's right to a free public education. And how could the district where I work survive without charging fees? I donated the amount of the fees to local charities that were not supported by tax dollars. And I've encouraged other parents to do the same.

There was a case brought quite a while ago by a parent who'd been charged for the use of texts. She won. But I don't know what IL's constitution says - maybe there's a way they get around it or the language is different.

But because we can't replace our tests as quickly as wealthy districts, we often get accused of not spending our money where we should. They don't realize when you can collect another $200 per STUDENT, you can get a lot more money for books. We'd have another $1.2 million, and a complete text refresh of an entire K-12 discipline is about $420,000, including training and software.

The right to a free public education is rooted in statute. Some of the law found in statutes is due to SCOTUS decisions (Lau, IIRC). Late '60s and early '70s saw this, with some updates a bit later.

Lau essentially found that denial of education to linguistic minorities was unconstitutional because it violated the due process and equal protection clauses. Of course, a critical mass of a given minority was required, because actually applying the Constitutional rights of due process and equal protection would be unduly burdensome to school districts and local/state governments. So if you're the only Tamil student in a school district that is 1/3 Vietnamese-, 1/3 English-, and 1/3 Basque-speaking, you're out of luck with language-specific programs. They just have to do the best they can. That doesn't really need to be too high in many cases.

Lau was the underpinning for bilingual ed programs and ESL programs across the country, as many parents and students filed suit to get the judicial decision and the actual legislation enforced. It was honed, trimmed, fertilized, and nurtured. Two-way immersion programs are Lau-compliant. Engish-only programs have been found Lau-compliant.

In AZ, the Flores consent degree pointed out that not only was Lau still relevant in the early '00s, but that merely having the program wasn't sufficient. In keeping with NCLB thinking, there had to be documentation that the cohort of ESL students was making adequate progress.

In the '70s-'90s this was extended to developmentally challenged students, with the exception that no critical mass was required. A single autistic kid would require a program.

As more descriptions of learning styles have come out, "appropriate" has changed in meaning, too. It started out as "linguistically" appropriate. But the legal system likes reasoning by analogy, and by analogy lots of things can be deemed to be analogical having the language be appropriate. If language, why not teaching style and learning style, why not teach integral calculus by acting it out for those who learn best using a kinesthetic modality?

Bceause it's rooted in the due process and equal protection clauses, FAPE rooted in the US Constitution. But note that they don't stipulate FAPE in a vacuum: If there were no public education, it's likely that Lau would have been decided differently. If there were no difference in how linguistic majorities and sufficiently-large minorities were treated FAPE wouldn't be an issue. If that happened it wouldn't be fairly constantly expanding to include more and more of the population as somehow in need of special services.

While the education budgets around the country have soared--after inflation--in the last 30 or 40 years, there's been precious little improvement that can be directly attributed to much of the spending. The counterargument to that is that much of that increase has been spent not on improving instruction to most of the student body but on implementing FAPE requirements.

More of the Repuke "no new taxes" thinking. Make up for the loss of tax money by "feeing" everything else to death.

The school districts in question already spends quite a bit more than our district (at $18K/student over double) even without the funds taken from the parents for schoolbooks.

Schoolbooks should be free for the students, and the entire process of purchasing them should be examined. Not only are the books not very good, they are overpriced, heavy, and filled with extraneous material that takes away from the learning.

Our school system does well academically, but we have several textbooks for which only class copies are available (in particular English Grammar). I see this as an unacceptable situation. I do not understand why good Grammar paperback textbooks cannot be printed for $10 and distributed to every student to keep. I would further say that excellent textbooks could be printed in a variety of subjects for that price. The Singapore math books are one example.

I do wonder if these parents spent much time looking online for the same textbooks. They could probably have cut their spend down considerably. I always buy my daughter's math books, and we do some studying before the beginning of the year. This allows her to not lug the heavy book home either. Of course I have been burned by buying books that no longer were used though.

Books could be downloaded and upgraded as needed. The readers could be lightweight and made to be more durable than typical e-readers. Could the cost be more than printing and shipping of regular textbooks?

and at prices nearing $100 for a small Nook or Kindle we will be their soon. Already open textbooks in a variety of subjects exist and more can be developed (this would an excellent role for the Department of Education). Between computer Internet access and ereaders we can get rid of paper textbooks once and for all.

Of course nothing beats having a textbook open on the table (or several) for learning. I think kids can adapt better than I can with my sticky notes on important pages and flipping back and forth to answer questions.

Actually I could see the possibility for a $300 IPAD like device that would serve nearly every need for a student. With appropriate software these could be locked down during class to only reference the class textbook etc. Open them up for free browsing etc for research or lock them into specific research sites. The skies the limit. Dock them to keyboards in the classroom, and you have all that is needed for a functioning PC (Word Processing, Presentation, and Spreadsheets).

the kids these days (I know I sound old) are much more into this kind of technology and they may be more apt to use it. I know how heavy my son's backpack can get and it's a true health hazard!

unless those books were lost or damaged.

I'm thankful for that. The hit we put on them to help with school supplies is bad enough. I liked it when we had an open supply warehouse, and just ordered what we needed without worrying about budget. No need to hoard, no stinginess between teachers, and no "teirs" of students, with some showing up with riches and others with rocks.

:think: